La otra bienal INGLÉS

The other biennial- Agropoetry

Wilson Díaz

The Colombian artist Wilson Díaz presented his piece Movement of the liberation of the coca plant on the land where the El Dorado gallery was to be built, to mark The Other Biennial.

Amy Franceschini, San Francisco and Wilson Diaz, Cali, Colombia met via email and connected through fragmented exchanges using human and virtual translators to transmit meaning between their native tongues- english and spanish. Drawn together by a mutual desire for the conservation and perpetuity of our “natural” environment, Wilson and Amy met in person in San Francisco in February 2009. Not speaking each others language, they used the medium of drawing to communicate for their first week together.

Beulah gallery has kindly opened its doors to exhibit this first step of an evolving collaboration: The Movement of the Liberation of the Coca Plant…

One of the most problematic effects of globalization in Colombia is the paradoxical relationship between production and consumption. In the land of the so called “war against drugs” led from North America, this polarization has made possible an explosive military, injustice and situations of isolation fostering the present desperate and criminal fight against drugs. In an attempt to eradicate illicit crops the Colombian government is spraying the wide spectrum herbicide, Roundup Ultra, which contaminates the ground, air, water, food, and all surrounding flora and fauna. Taking these situations as a starting point, Wilson Diaz and Amy Franceschini will perform related research and develop a new body of work, The Movement of the Liberation of the Coca Plant.

Taking inspiration from George Orwell’s fairy story, Animal Farm, Amy and Wilson have been developing a “fairy story” through an email exchange since September of this year. 1 Their collaborative story uses the Three Blind Mice tale as a departure point to address the various political, social and economic powers at play around the conservation and perpetuity of the coca plant. For the occasion of the Beulah gallery show, a small book has been printed with writer and curator Renny Pritikin.